The bill passed on
February
17.
Robertson - Bismarck
org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 448
BISMARCK
but on the Tsar. 'In opposition,' he said, ' to the views
expressed by the Russian press, I have the unqualified word
of the Tsar Alexander himself' (and, he did not add, his
pledge in writing). France, he pointed out with unmistak-
able emphasis, was unreconciled and irreconcilable. She
was more peaceful in 1888 than in 1887, as was proved
by Carnot's election to the Presidency, but ' no wars are
waged from mere hatred,' for 'otherwise France would have
to be at war with Italy and England and the whole world,
for France hates all its neighbours'--deliberate words not
intended to pacify France, and a passionate appeal to the
worst passions in the German heart. As for Bulgaria,
Germany's policy was clear. 'If Russia attempts to make
good her rights (in Bulgaria) I should consider it the duty
of a loyal German policy to hold purely and simply to the
stipulations of the Berlin Treaty. . . . If Russia makes
official application to us to support steps for the re-estab-
lishment of the situation in Bulgaria, as it was created at
the Congress . . . I shall have no hesitation in advising
His Majesty the Emperor to comply with the request.
This is demanded of our treaty--loyalty to our neighbour,
with whom, whatever his prevailing mood, we must still
cherish neighbourly relations, and make common cause
against the foes of Social and Monarchical order in Europe,
a task of which the Sovereign of Russia has a full ap-
preciation. ' The significance of these passages is un-
mistakable. They announced publicly Bismarck's share
of the bargain in the Secret Convention--a general support
of Russian policy alike against Great Britain or an un-
reasonable Austria.
The peroration was a finely worded summary of
Bismarck's gospel of power, evincing his grip on the
secrets of German strength and the indissoluble unity of
strategy and policy which made its ringing appeal a text
for every German household :--
'The European pond is too full of pikes for Germany ever to
become a carp. . . . Behind our army stand our reserves. It
must not be said " others can do the same. " That is just what
they cannot do. We have the material, not only for forming
an enormous army, but for furnishing it with officers. We have
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
a corps of officers such as no other Power has. When we under-
take a war it must be a people's war which all approve, as in
1870. If we are attacked then the juror teutonicus will flame out,
and no one can make head against that. . . . We base our
alliance on the strength of our army. If we have no cause to
use it, all the better, but we must make our arrangements with
the idea that we do use it. . . . Every country in the long run is
responsible for the windows broken by its newspapers; the bill
will be presented one day in the ill-temper of a neighbour. We
can be easily influenced by love and sympathy--perhaps too
easily--but by threats, never! We Germans fear God and
nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God that causes
us to love peace and ensue it. . . . He who attacks the German
nation will find it armed to a man, and every soldier with the
firm belief in his heart that "God is with us. "'
The most scholarly and accomplished of the French
biographers of Bismarck, M. Matter,1 has held that this
speech was, for all its resounding success, a proof of failing
powers in Bismarck, and ultimately responsible for the
breach between Russia and Germany, and for the Franco-
Russian Alliance. 'II avait brise net Palliance russo-
allemande et prepare l'entente franco-russe. ' It is difficult
to concur in this judgment. The failure to renew the
secret Reinsurance of 1887 in 1890 was due to the Emperor
and Chancellor Caprivi, not to Bismarck. As is indicated
further on, Bismarck's quarrel with the Emperor was
partly the result of a fundamental difference in foreign
policy. Neither in 1890 nor in 1887 was Bismarck ready
to support Austria at all costs against Russia, nor to throw
away the opportunity of a close (if secret) understanding
between Berlin and Petersburg by backing Austrian policy
in the Balkans without reserve. The more closely that
the speech of February 6 is studied, the more clearly do its
veiled inferences stand out. It was intended to be, and
remains, a classic and magisterial review by Bismarck at
the end of his life of the principles of his policy that he
had followed since 1871. The action of the German
1 M. Matter {Bismarck et Son Tempi, iii. p. 524 et seq. ), usually singularly
accurate, gives the date (pp. 538 and 5+0) of the great speech as February 8.
Bismarck did not speak on February 8 (the third reading). The correct date is
February 6, as is clear from any of the collected editions of Bismarck's speeches
and the accounts in the daily newspapers of that date.
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? 456 BISMARCK
government in 1890 was the first of a series of departures
from the Bismarckian system both at home and abroad.
Those departures may have been justifiable or the reverse,
but Bismarck cannot fairly be held responsible either for
their consequences in the Franco-Russian Entente of 1891
or for making that alliance inevitable when it is demon-
strable that he resisted to the last the policy that in-
augurated them.
The years 1887 and 1888, so crowded with crises, had
witnessed another great Bismarckian stroke, belonging both
to home and to foreign policy, which measured by its
results was more momentous than the brilliant strokes that
impressed Europe. In 1887 Bismarck was winding up the
Kulturkampf. Elaborate negotiations in 1886 had con-
tinued between Berlin and the Vatican. On January 14,
1887, the Centre under Windthorst agreed with the
Liberals under Richter to vote nof for the Septennate, but
for a limitation of the government demands to three years,
and, as has been stated, the Centre and Liberals threw out
the government proposal. If the government were to
carry their measure in the new Reichstag the vote of
the Centre was essential, for without the hundred votes
of the Centre, whatever might be the result of the General
Election, the military policy of the government must be
defeated. It is generally supposed that Bismarck 'went
to Canossa ' for the last time, and bought the support of
the Centre by the Law of 1887, which was a fresh set of
concessions to the Vatican, and that the Vatican thereby
won its final victory. The Papacy sold, it is commonly
asserted, the Centre vote for the Septennate in return
for the Law of 1887.
Bismarck, the Curia, and Windthorst could have told
a quite different story. On this occasion Bismarck did
not go to Canossa. Instead the Papacy went to Fried-
richsruhe. The Triple Alliance in the early spring of 1887,
and with it the inclusion of Italy, came up for renewal.
It was notorious in 1886 that the relations between the
Quirinal and the Vatican were severely strained, and that
both the Italian Monarchy and the- Papacy were working
against each other, and both in need of allies. And this
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
continued all through 1887. Bismarck saw his oppor-
tunity. His objects were purely political--the mainte-
nance of his system. He had negotiated with the Vatican
all through 1886, and the word went out from the Vatican
in a diplomatic note (January 3, 1887), from Cardinal
Jacobini, the Vatican Secretary of State, that the Catholic
Centre was to vote for the Septennate. Windthorst
defied the command on January 14, 1887, and the Sep-
tennate was defeated. This was rebellion in the eyes of
the Curia. A second warning note from Cardinal Jacobini
followed (January 21). The German Catholic bishops
were ordered to throw themselves into the fray on the
government side against Radicals and Socialists; and they
did so with exemplary obedience. They organised a great
pro-government campaign. In the new Reichstag the
Centre were again ordered to vote for the government's
Bill. Windthorst had both resisted and resented the
orders from Rome in a purely political matter and the
consequent split between the ecclesiastical and lay forces
of Catholicism within the Empire. But the alliance of
Bismarck and the Papacy was too strong for him. He
regarded the Bill as fatal to the principles of freedom that
he had represented since 1871, and he distrusted profoundly
the bargain that the Papacy had made, because he dis-
trusted Bismarck. Vote for the Bill he would not, despite
the Papal command. Vote against it he dared not; so
with eighty-three of his ninety supporters he walked out
and took no part in the division.
Only seven of the Centre voted with the government.
Bismarck had won--and won completely. Henceforward
through the Papacy he would command the Centre Party.
The Government Bill of 1887 to end the Kulturkampf
was, as Windthorst knew or guessed, not the complete
repeal that the Vatican desired,1 and Bismarck's speech
of March 23, 1887, in the Herrenhaus of the Prussian
> The Bill:
1. Empowered the opening of seminaries for priests;
2. Abolished the civil veto on the appointment of parish priests;
3. Restored the episcopal powers of discipline;
4. Permitted the return of purely religious, charitable, or contemplative
Orders. The Society of Jesus was not included.
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? 452
BISMARCK
Landtag, in which he reviewed the general situation, is
pervaded with a subdued note of triumph. The con-
cessions to the Papacy he argued were reasonable and did
not conflict with the authority of the State. What was
important was that the Papacy had crushed the alliance
of the Centre with the Radicals and had thrown itself on
the side of law and order. 'Pope and Emperor,' he as-
serted, 'have an identical interest and must make a
common front against Anarchy and Revolution. . . . I
consider the Pope more friendly to Germany than the
Centre. . . . The Pope is not a Guelph, a Pole, or a new
Liberal, nor has he anything to do with Social Democrats. '
The Triple Alliance was renewed. When Bismarck spoke
on March 23 the order of the Black Eagle had been con-
ferred on Count di Robilant for his share in the renewed
inclusion of Italy. If the Papacy had hoped by going to
Friedrichsruhe to obtain the complete repeal of the laws
against the Roman Church, the unqualified readmission
of the ecclesiastical orders, and the support of Germany
against the Quirinal in Italy it was bitterly mistaken. The
bargain had been dictated and interpreted by Bismarck,
not the Vatican. No less significant was the undoubted
fact that Great Britain had given specific pledges of pro-
tection to the Italian Kingdom--the preservation of the
status quo in the Mediterranean and the defence of Italy
from'invasion by sea. 'Our position,' Depretis said in
February 1887, 'is now secure both by land and sea. '
'Our friendly relations with England,' said the Italian
Foreign Minister, as late as 1896, 'are in our view the
natural complement of the Triple Alliance. '
Bismarck in 1887 might well feel triumphant. He had
secured Italy on such terms that he virtually secured Great
Britain also. 1 At Rome in the allied Italian Monarchy he
had a powerful check on the Vatican; he had compelled
1 See Chiala,' La Duplice e la Triplice Allianza,' Hansard (i888), vol. 322.
1172, et jeq. , and The Times for November 5, 1887. It was generally understood
that the renewal provided, 1, If France 'attacked' Germany or Italy both were
to join in defence; 2. If Russia 'attacked ' Germany or Austria both were to
unite in defence; 3. If France and Russia attacked any one of the three allies,
all three were to unite in defence. The re-organisation of the Italian army in
1887 and 1888 (particularly after the visit of the Emperor William it. to Rome
in 1888) was one of the consequences of the renewal of the Triple Alliance.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
the Papacy to win a victory for the German government
in Germany, which enormously increased the power of
the civil and militarist government, and through the
Papacy and the German Catholic bishops he had destroyed
the independent and powerful political opposition of
Windthorst and the Clerical Centre in the Reichstag.
The Chancellor's political cartel was complete; it con-
sisted of the Conservatives, the old National Liberals,
and the Centre; and the union gave him a decisive and
obedient majority. 1
The year 1887, therefore, registered the final defeat of
Liberalism, and not merely political but also intellectual
Liberalism. Militarism and reaction won all along the line
and the commander-in-chief of Militarism and reaction
was Bismarck. The German Clerical Centre, like the old
National Liberals, shed its last rags of independence, and
became henceforward a party that stood for authority,
despotism, and Pan-Germanism, corrupted by the favour of
the government, demoralised by its dependence on the
Vatican, and allied with the Pan-German party in Austria.
The Papacy and its parties became the allies and agents of
Prussianism, as Bismarck understood the term. 'The
Anti-Christ,' denounced by Pio Nono and Antonelli had
become the champion for whom Popes and Nuncios would
work--and not only in Germany. The ring of interests
that buttressed up the Bismarckian system was now com-
pleted by the alliance between the Conservative Lutherans
of Junkertum and the Conservative Clericals of the Centre.
Success, like misfortune, makes strange political bed-
fellows. The 'white international of- the dynasties,' true
to the solidarity of legitimate autocracy, was seconded
by 'the yellow international of High Finance,' the
Kaiserjudtn and the Industrials (Schlot-Junkertum), and
the 1 black international of the Clericals. ' After 1887
the penetration and capture of the Curia by the
diplomacy of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria, was only a
question of time--proved up to the hilt when it became
necessary to elect a successor to Leo xm, Germany, says
1 'Peace with the Catholic Church,' Bismarck said,' will strengthen our rela-
tions with foreign countries, especially Austria. '
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? 454
BISMARCK
Naumann, became 'a prosperous Spain. ' A passage in
Bismarck's speech of March 23 is very significant: 'The
sharpest and bitterest opponents of the government,' he
asserted, 'have been pupils of the German Universities,
not of the Seminaries. . . . A seminary under a peace-
loving, well-disposed bishop, with a good German mind,
is far preferable to a course of study at a German Univer-
sity, where no one is responsible for the education with all
its influences which uncontrolled mould the student. '
In other words, minds made to order and on a pattern
prescribed by the government for its own political ends
are preferable to minds formed by free and critical in-
quiry. It is the prescription and the ideal of reaction and
authority and always will be. But it was a sorry and
sinister ending to the struggle for intellectual and political
freedom with Vaticanism--an unexpected close to the
conflict that Bismarck had commenced in 1873--and it
opened a chapter in the intellectual history of the German
universities and of the German mind, dreaded alike by
Mommsen and Virchow--the two greatest figures in the
German world of intellect. That chapter was not closed
when Bismarck died in 1898. It is not closed yet. It
was therefore wholly consonant to Bismarck's policy that
in the spring of 1888 a new anti-Socialist Bill prolonged
the exceptional powers conferred on the Central Executive
until September 30, 1893. The power to deprive of
civic rights all Socialists convicted under the law was
enlarged, and the Minister of the Interior, Herr von
Puttkamer, announced openly that the German Secret
Police extended their efforts to Switzerland, and acted as
voluntary agents in the struggle of Russian absolutism with
Nihilists and refugees.
The bill passed on February 17.
On March 9 the change long foreseen took place. The
death of the Emperor William on that day opened the
last phase for Bismarck.
? 6. The Last Phase--Bismarck's Resignation,
March iSSS-March 1890
The death of the Emperor William 1. removed the
sovereign whom Bismarck had served for twenty-five years
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 455
with a personal devotion, as sincere as it was deep. The
brief speech in which the Chancellor announced to the
Reichstag that the first Prussian Emperor was dead is the
best proof of the grief that the national loss stirred within
him. And even that official effort was too great a strain.
For the first and the last time Bismarck broke down. He
resumed his seat broken with emotion, after a few rugged
sentences, in which both words and strength failed him.
The failure was a far more impressive tribute to his royal
and imperial master than any funeral oration. The simple
Soldier-King and the mighty Minister-President of Prussia
had worked together through a heroic epoch for great
and heroic ends; and profoundly as they differed in
character and gifts, sharp as had been on notable occasions
the collision of their wills, the personal bond of loyalty,
service, and affection, forged at Schloss Babenberg on
September 22, 1862, had deepened and tightened with
every year until it had become indissoluble, except by
death. William 1. never forgot that the two things in life
which summed up his political creed--the House of Hohen-
zollern and the Prussian army--were the two things which
his minister had saved from ruin and made the two most
puissant and indisputable forces in Germany and Europe.
Bismarck and Bismarck's policy had unified Germany, but
unified it in such a way that the head of the House of
Hohenzollern was the greatest sovereign on the Continent
of Europe, while the power and stability of the dynasty
rested on the unified nation in arms, of which the King-
Emperor was the War-Lord by acknowledged right. In
1888 as he lay dying William could remember his mother
Queen Louisa and Jena--he could remember 1848 and his
brother, Frederick William iv. --only forty years ago.
In the spring of 1888 'the March days' of '48 were as
unthinkable as the recurrence of a Jena or the visit of a
French conqueror to the tomb of Frederick the Great.
William could die in peace, full of years, with a nation
following him in mourning to his grave. The minister
who had achieved was indeed mighty, but the sceptre and
the prerogative that passed so rapidly to son and grandson
were mightier than the minister, who had made them
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? 456
BISMARCK
what they were. Within two years the Prussian Crown
had broken the Chancellor. Bismarck could not work
without the Prussian Crown: but the sequel showed that
the Prussian Crown would and could work without
Bismarck. And it was Bismarck who had made this
possible.
Had fate decided differently, the strength of that
Prussian Crown might have been convincingly exem-
plified in the reign of the Emperor Frederick. In De-
cember 1887, however, sentence of death had in reality
been passed on the Crown Prince, and when the new
Emperor arrived in Berlin on March 12 from San Remo
--unable to reach his capital until three days after his
father's death--he was a dying man. On June 8, Herr von
Puttkamer, the reactionary Minister of the Interior ' re-
signed. ' On June 15, the Emperor Frederick was dead.
* What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us! '
It is a commonplace, but one of those commonplaces
that enshrine notable truths, to pronounce the Emperor
Frederick's reign to be a tragedy. The tragedy does not
lie in the physical suffering, so heroically borne, nor in the
premature death of one cut off in the prime of a superb
manhood, but in the misery of frustrated purposes and
baffled hopes. All his life, since the days of a generous
and exultant youth, the Crown Prince had been inspired
by high and noble purposes. Through the dreary'era of
conflict,' through Kfiniggratz, Worth, Gravelotte, Sedan,
and Versailles, through the Kulturkampf and the establish-
ment of the Dual and Triple Alliance, the heir to the
throne had cherished the ideal of proving to Prussia,
Germany, and the world that a soldier-sovereign of the
Hohenzollern House, who believed in the Prussian army
and had played his part as became a Hohenzollern in the
unification of Germany by victory in the field, could also
be a liberal and constitutional ruler, whose duty it was to
give to Prussia and Germany a government, a policy, and
an outlook truly Liberal. And when at last Providence
had placed the sceptre in his hands, and a great work
awaited the new ruler which could only be done by
a Liberal sovereign, fate struck him down impotent and
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 457
tortured, yet haunted by the splendours of the ideal that
had made his life an apprenticeship in self-suppression
and a consecration to duty.
Death can be very bitter. Had Frederick's three
months of rule been dogged by prolonged physical pain
and the knowledge of failure to realise his dreams, they
would have been a martyrdom; but to the bitterness of
pain and defeat were added, in the mystery of human
things, the rebellion and treachery of an ungrateful son,
and the unpardonable tyranny of his Chancellor to all
whom the Emperor loved or cared for--and his own help-
lessness to protect or to punish. Insolence, intrigue, de-
famation, and defiance are never so detestable as when
they are employed against the dying and by those who
reckon on the security that the Angel of Death at
the door will bring to their authors. There are black
pages in Bismarck's record and black places in his char-
acter, but the blackest that no extenuation can obliterate
are recorded in the three months from March 13 to
June 15, 1888. And it is fitting, perhaps, that the
chapter and verse should be supplied in the amazing pages
of Busch's chronicles,1 though Busch's revelations are
only a fragment of the evidence. Richter's speech in the
Prussian Landtag (May 27), evoked by the infamous article
on 'Petticoat Government,' was a scathing exposure of
the campaign of libel opened (certainly with Bismarck's
knowledge, probably at his inspiration) by the Conser-
vative and National Liberal parties, and also of the
intimidation and bribery practised by the government
officials. It led to the Imperial rescript enjoining free-
dom at the elections, which caused Puttkamei's dismissal
(June 8). Bismarck promptly paid a visit to, and then
entertained the dismissed minister at a dinner at the
Imperial Chancery (June 11). 2 The Emperor was known
1 Butch, Bismarck, Srcret Pages, see particularly iii. pp. i63-189 (Eng. ed. ).
'Circumstances here, notes Hohenlohe laconically on May 26, at Berlin, 'dis-
pleased me intensely. It is a pity that I could not retire now as a strong protest
against all these goings on. ' Hohenlohe was an honourable gentleman.
* There is considerable evidence that Bismarck really desired Puttkamer's dis-
missal, and characteristically placed the odium on the Emperor, taking care tq ?
represent it as an 'English' and 'feminine' intrigue.
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? 458
BISMARCK
to be dying--he could not be openly disobeyed, but he
could be insulted and defied, with impunity. Such was
Bismarck's gratitude for the three critical occasions in
which the Emperor, as Crown Prince, in 1866, 1870, and
1879, had supported the Minister's policy against the
obstinacy of the sovereign. The truth was, as Hohenlohe
records (December 15, 1889); 'remarkable to me was
the deep aversion which he. (Bismarck) has for the
Emperor Frederick. He declared him an egotistical,
cold man, and said he had no heart. ' Comment on such
verdict is unnecessary. When, as so often, he was mastered
by personal hate, which coincided with a fundamental
political antagonism, there Were no limits to Bismarck's
unscrupulous brutality. One subject of bitter controversy,
involving foreign policy, had arisen in these tragic three
months--the proposed marriage between the Princess
Victoria, the Emperor's daughter, and Prince Alexander
of Battenberg. Since the secret Reinsurance Treaty,
Bismarck was determined in every way to keep on good
terms with the Tsar. The envenomed hostility of the
Tsar to Prince Alexander had been proclaimed broadcast
to the world in the preceding two years. In the summer
of 1888 Prince Alexander no longer ruled in the united
Bulgarias, and there was no chance of his ever being in
authority again at Sofia. Bismarck vetoed the marriage,
for the simple reason that it would stir such a ferocity of
resentment in the Tsar as to endanger, if not snap, the
entente of 1887. He chose to represent the proposal in
the press and in official circles as a Machiavellian effort
of England to control German policy for English ends, to
embroil Germany and Russia for English ends, and to
manipulate the destinies of Bulgaria for English purposes
against the interests of Germany and Russia. The press
under the Chancellor's control and in his pay had instruc-
tions to open a savage campaign against English interfer-
ence in German affairs and in the Near East. And the
instructions were obeyed with a scurrilous zest. If
Bismarck did not know that this was untrue, he was very
incompetent. But he was not incompetent, and the
inference is obvious and indisputable. The marriage did
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 459
not take place. But this was not a victory of an inde-
pendent Germany over an intriguing and unscrupulous
Great Britain. For, as we know now, the influence of
Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury were exerted precisely
as Bismarck would have Germany believe they were not.
The accession of the Emperor William n. on June 16,
1888--the year of the Three Emperors--opened up a
wholly new situation. The new sovereign was in his
twenty-ninth year, and teeming with energy, ideas, and
masterfulness. Since 1887 he had been carefully in-
structed, at his grandfather's wish, in the mysteries of
statecraft by Bismarck, and the effusive enthusiasm with
which he proclaimed at the outset his desire to carry out
his grandfather's (not his father's) policy with the aid of
his grandfather's great Chancellor made the resignation
that Bismarck had contemplated after the death of
William 1. superfluous. Germany was instructed to
believe that the new sovereign would be in all things as
obedient to Bismarck's advice and ripe experience as had
been William 1.
Bismarck himself believed it. A year later, in the
autumn of 1889, when the Tsar was in Berlin and Bismarck
emphasised his earnest lesire that German policy should
maintain a close co-operation with Russia, the Tsar
pointedly asked, 'Are you sure of remaining in office? '
'Certainly, your Majesty,' Bismarck replied, 'I am
absolutely sure of remaining in office all my life. '1 That
was on October 11. Five months later he had ceased to
be Chancellor, and if any date must be selected for the
commencement of the serious collision between Chan-
cellor and Emperor it would be October I3,a two days
after Bismarck's confident utterance, when a serious
difference on foreign policy revealed itself. The publi-
cation by Geffcken (one of the Emperor Frederick's circle)
of elaborate excerpts from the late emperor's diary in the
Deutsche Rundschau, bearing particularly on the war of
1 Bismarck related this to the NauFreie Presse, which printed it in its issue of
June 22, 1892. Down to the autumn of 1889, Hohenlohe repeatedly noted that
the Emperor was 'entirely under the influence of the Chancellor. '
1 In the conversation between the two, after the Tsar's departure, as recorded
by Bismarck in the Hamburger Naekrichten, July 24, 1891,
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? 460
BISMARCK
1870, the foundation of the Empire and the Liberalism
of the Crown Prince, created a great stir. Bismarck's
'Immediate Report' attacked the authenticity of the
document, but as he admitted to Busch, whatever its
authenticity, it must be treated as spurious because the
record was damaging to the official version and the in-
terest of the dynasty, and not least to Bismarck himself.
Geffcken's prosecution was ordered, while Geffcken himself
was arrested and sent to prison. 'The legend that the
late Emperor was a Liberal, in sympathy with the Pro-
gressive party, was dangerous to the whole dynasty and
must be destroyed. '
Geffcken's acquittal (January 4, 1882) by the Supreme
Court was a damaging blow to Bismarck, which roused
him to uncontrollable anger. He wished to institute
'disciplinary measures' against Geffcken in the University.
of Strasburg; or, in other words, to compel the Univer-
sity to deprive him of his chair. But, apart from this
high-handed interference with academic and civic rights,
how could a professor be dismissed for an alleged offence
of which the highest tribunal in Germany had just
acquitted him? The idea was proved to be legally im-
possible, but Bismarck's desire to crush Geffcken, as he
had crushed Arnim, simply proved his intolerance of all
opposition and all intellectual or political liberty. It
proceeded from the same principles as the unrelenting
pressure that he applied during 1888 and 1889 to the
Swiss government in ' the Wohlgemuth affair,' to coerce
the Federal authorities into collaborating with the German
secret police, planted in Swiss territory, in hunting down
German Socialists, driven oat of Germany by the Anti-
Socialist Law. The Swiss government very properly
refused to comply with so unwarranted an intervention
in the internal affairs of a Sovereign State. There
followed a menacing correspondence in which Bismarck
went so far as to threaten that Germany might decline to
recognise any further the 'neutrality' of Switzerland
defined by an international guarantee; but the Swiss, to
Bismarck's anger, declined to be browbeaten by their
powerful neighbour, 'He,' (Bismarck) Hohenlohe noted
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 461
in the Geffcken affair, 'gave me the impression of a man
not quite sound mentally' (January 25, 1889). He
repeats the remark with reference to the Swiss. 'Even
Herbert Bismarck,' he notes (June 24), 'said he could
no longer understand his father, and many people were
beginning to think that he was no longer quite sane. '
The German soldier chiefs were seriously troubled. All
their military plans for a war in which Germany might be
involved with France were drawn on the assumption of a
friendly and neutral Switzerland. Switzerland driven
into the arms of France would dislocate the strategical
ideas that the great General Staff, in its continuous study
of the European situation, was always working out in
the light of every fresh political development. Bismarck
was, indeed, as sane as was Napoleon 1. in his later years,
but with both men uncontrolled power and overweening
confidence in their genius brought out all the latent des-
potism that from the very first was embedded in their
political principles and their interpretation of life; and
with both resentment concentrated in a personal hatred
of the individual who symbolised the opposition. Bis-
marck only desired to treat Geffcken as Napoleon treated
Mme. de Stael or the Duc D'Enghien. The world must
be made safe for autocracy. 1
The plain truth was that after June 1888 the conditions
which had made the Bismarckian system workable and
possible were suddenly reversed. Bismarck and Germany
had grown accustomed to the rule of an emperor never
fitted by his gifts to be a great master either of adminis-
tration or of policy, who in 1871 was in his seventy-fourth
year, and with every year was obliged to surrender more
and more of power and control to the adviser whose
1 No less characteristic of Bismarckian methods and manners and of the
'anti-English' campaign was the revival in the controlled German press of the
charge that Sir R. Morier, then British Ambassador at Petersburg, had in 1870,
when he was British minister at Darmstadt, betrayed to the French at Metx
important military information damaging to the German operations. Morier
publicly refuted this infamous and absurd libel, proving by a letter of Marshal
Bazaine that it was a lie; but Count Herbert Bismarck, though requested to do
so, declined officially to disavow it, or, when challenged, to produce any evidence
in its support; with the result that, to this day it is still believed in educated
quarters in Germany.
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? \6i
BISMARCK
genius, amazing capacity for work, and complete accord
with his sovereign in the general principles of government
inspired a deep confidence. Bismarck had thus syndicated
in himself both the formidable powers of the Imperial
Chancellorship and the still more formidable powers of the
Emperor and Prussian King. The new Emperor was
young, versatile, and fired by a devouring activity. Had
he been a constitutional sovereign he would not have
been prepared to step on to the shelf during the best years
of his life. But he was not a constitutional sovereign.
William n. had been born and bred in the militarist
atmosphere of the Hohenzollern Court, and he had been
trained in the theory, sedulously enforced since 1847 by
no one more than by Bismarck himself, that the Prussian
monarch personally governed, and that the Prussian
Crown was not the idle ornament of a constitutional
building, but the living and operative force in the mechan-
ism of the State. . 'If a lion knew its own strength,'
Wolsey remarked of the young Henry vin. , 'hard it were
to rule him. ' There were, in fact, practically no limits
- to what the Emperor, with the help of the Prussian Crown,
could do, if he chose to exercise to its full all the latent
power in the prerogative, prestige, and influence of the
Imperial and Prussian Monarchy. William n. took some
months to discover what an unexplored and inexhaustible
heritage had fallen to him--a heritage enriched by
Bismarck's efforts for a quarter of a century. Therein lay
the irony of the situation. Had Bismarck been the Parlia-
ment-made minister of a constitutional sovereign, whose
ministerial position rested on a national mandate expressed
through a representative assembly to which he was re-
sponsible, it would have been William n. not Bismarck who
must have given way. Bismarck had indeed the confidence
of the nation. A plebiscite in t 890 would have retained
him in office till death came. But the nation could not
save him in 1890, nor could it bring him back. Once he
had lost the support of the Crown he was powerless. He
could not appeal to the Reichstag nor to the Federal
Council, still less to the nation by a general election. He
must either resign or be dismissed. He could not even
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? 448
BISMARCK
but on the Tsar. 'In opposition,' he said, ' to the views
expressed by the Russian press, I have the unqualified word
of the Tsar Alexander himself' (and, he did not add, his
pledge in writing). France, he pointed out with unmistak-
able emphasis, was unreconciled and irreconcilable. She
was more peaceful in 1888 than in 1887, as was proved
by Carnot's election to the Presidency, but ' no wars are
waged from mere hatred,' for 'otherwise France would have
to be at war with Italy and England and the whole world,
for France hates all its neighbours'--deliberate words not
intended to pacify France, and a passionate appeal to the
worst passions in the German heart. As for Bulgaria,
Germany's policy was clear. 'If Russia attempts to make
good her rights (in Bulgaria) I should consider it the duty
of a loyal German policy to hold purely and simply to the
stipulations of the Berlin Treaty. . . . If Russia makes
official application to us to support steps for the re-estab-
lishment of the situation in Bulgaria, as it was created at
the Congress . . . I shall have no hesitation in advising
His Majesty the Emperor to comply with the request.
This is demanded of our treaty--loyalty to our neighbour,
with whom, whatever his prevailing mood, we must still
cherish neighbourly relations, and make common cause
against the foes of Social and Monarchical order in Europe,
a task of which the Sovereign of Russia has a full ap-
preciation. ' The significance of these passages is un-
mistakable. They announced publicly Bismarck's share
of the bargain in the Secret Convention--a general support
of Russian policy alike against Great Britain or an un-
reasonable Austria.
The peroration was a finely worded summary of
Bismarck's gospel of power, evincing his grip on the
secrets of German strength and the indissoluble unity of
strategy and policy which made its ringing appeal a text
for every German household :--
'The European pond is too full of pikes for Germany ever to
become a carp. . . . Behind our army stand our reserves. It
must not be said " others can do the same. " That is just what
they cannot do. We have the material, not only for forming
an enormous army, but for furnishing it with officers. We have
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
a corps of officers such as no other Power has. When we under-
take a war it must be a people's war which all approve, as in
1870. If we are attacked then the juror teutonicus will flame out,
and no one can make head against that. . . . We base our
alliance on the strength of our army. If we have no cause to
use it, all the better, but we must make our arrangements with
the idea that we do use it. . . . Every country in the long run is
responsible for the windows broken by its newspapers; the bill
will be presented one day in the ill-temper of a neighbour. We
can be easily influenced by love and sympathy--perhaps too
easily--but by threats, never! We Germans fear God and
nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God that causes
us to love peace and ensue it. . . . He who attacks the German
nation will find it armed to a man, and every soldier with the
firm belief in his heart that "God is with us. "'
The most scholarly and accomplished of the French
biographers of Bismarck, M. Matter,1 has held that this
speech was, for all its resounding success, a proof of failing
powers in Bismarck, and ultimately responsible for the
breach between Russia and Germany, and for the Franco-
Russian Alliance. 'II avait brise net Palliance russo-
allemande et prepare l'entente franco-russe. ' It is difficult
to concur in this judgment. The failure to renew the
secret Reinsurance of 1887 in 1890 was due to the Emperor
and Chancellor Caprivi, not to Bismarck. As is indicated
further on, Bismarck's quarrel with the Emperor was
partly the result of a fundamental difference in foreign
policy. Neither in 1890 nor in 1887 was Bismarck ready
to support Austria at all costs against Russia, nor to throw
away the opportunity of a close (if secret) understanding
between Berlin and Petersburg by backing Austrian policy
in the Balkans without reserve. The more closely that
the speech of February 6 is studied, the more clearly do its
veiled inferences stand out. It was intended to be, and
remains, a classic and magisterial review by Bismarck at
the end of his life of the principles of his policy that he
had followed since 1871. The action of the German
1 M. Matter {Bismarck et Son Tempi, iii. p. 524 et seq. ), usually singularly
accurate, gives the date (pp. 538 and 5+0) of the great speech as February 8.
Bismarck did not speak on February 8 (the third reading). The correct date is
February 6, as is clear from any of the collected editions of Bismarck's speeches
and the accounts in the daily newspapers of that date.
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? 456 BISMARCK
government in 1890 was the first of a series of departures
from the Bismarckian system both at home and abroad.
Those departures may have been justifiable or the reverse,
but Bismarck cannot fairly be held responsible either for
their consequences in the Franco-Russian Entente of 1891
or for making that alliance inevitable when it is demon-
strable that he resisted to the last the policy that in-
augurated them.
The years 1887 and 1888, so crowded with crises, had
witnessed another great Bismarckian stroke, belonging both
to home and to foreign policy, which measured by its
results was more momentous than the brilliant strokes that
impressed Europe. In 1887 Bismarck was winding up the
Kulturkampf. Elaborate negotiations in 1886 had con-
tinued between Berlin and the Vatican. On January 14,
1887, the Centre under Windthorst agreed with the
Liberals under Richter to vote nof for the Septennate, but
for a limitation of the government demands to three years,
and, as has been stated, the Centre and Liberals threw out
the government proposal. If the government were to
carry their measure in the new Reichstag the vote of
the Centre was essential, for without the hundred votes
of the Centre, whatever might be the result of the General
Election, the military policy of the government must be
defeated. It is generally supposed that Bismarck 'went
to Canossa ' for the last time, and bought the support of
the Centre by the Law of 1887, which was a fresh set of
concessions to the Vatican, and that the Vatican thereby
won its final victory. The Papacy sold, it is commonly
asserted, the Centre vote for the Septennate in return
for the Law of 1887.
Bismarck, the Curia, and Windthorst could have told
a quite different story. On this occasion Bismarck did
not go to Canossa. Instead the Papacy went to Fried-
richsruhe. The Triple Alliance in the early spring of 1887,
and with it the inclusion of Italy, came up for renewal.
It was notorious in 1886 that the relations between the
Quirinal and the Vatican were severely strained, and that
both the Italian Monarchy and the- Papacy were working
against each other, and both in need of allies. And this
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
continued all through 1887. Bismarck saw his oppor-
tunity. His objects were purely political--the mainte-
nance of his system. He had negotiated with the Vatican
all through 1886, and the word went out from the Vatican
in a diplomatic note (January 3, 1887), from Cardinal
Jacobini, the Vatican Secretary of State, that the Catholic
Centre was to vote for the Septennate. Windthorst
defied the command on January 14, 1887, and the Sep-
tennate was defeated. This was rebellion in the eyes of
the Curia. A second warning note from Cardinal Jacobini
followed (January 21). The German Catholic bishops
were ordered to throw themselves into the fray on the
government side against Radicals and Socialists; and they
did so with exemplary obedience. They organised a great
pro-government campaign. In the new Reichstag the
Centre were again ordered to vote for the government's
Bill. Windthorst had both resisted and resented the
orders from Rome in a purely political matter and the
consequent split between the ecclesiastical and lay forces
of Catholicism within the Empire. But the alliance of
Bismarck and the Papacy was too strong for him. He
regarded the Bill as fatal to the principles of freedom that
he had represented since 1871, and he distrusted profoundly
the bargain that the Papacy had made, because he dis-
trusted Bismarck. Vote for the Bill he would not, despite
the Papal command. Vote against it he dared not; so
with eighty-three of his ninety supporters he walked out
and took no part in the division.
Only seven of the Centre voted with the government.
Bismarck had won--and won completely. Henceforward
through the Papacy he would command the Centre Party.
The Government Bill of 1887 to end the Kulturkampf
was, as Windthorst knew or guessed, not the complete
repeal that the Vatican desired,1 and Bismarck's speech
of March 23, 1887, in the Herrenhaus of the Prussian
> The Bill:
1. Empowered the opening of seminaries for priests;
2. Abolished the civil veto on the appointment of parish priests;
3. Restored the episcopal powers of discipline;
4. Permitted the return of purely religious, charitable, or contemplative
Orders. The Society of Jesus was not included.
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? 452
BISMARCK
Landtag, in which he reviewed the general situation, is
pervaded with a subdued note of triumph. The con-
cessions to the Papacy he argued were reasonable and did
not conflict with the authority of the State. What was
important was that the Papacy had crushed the alliance
of the Centre with the Radicals and had thrown itself on
the side of law and order. 'Pope and Emperor,' he as-
serted, 'have an identical interest and must make a
common front against Anarchy and Revolution. . . . I
consider the Pope more friendly to Germany than the
Centre. . . . The Pope is not a Guelph, a Pole, or a new
Liberal, nor has he anything to do with Social Democrats. '
The Triple Alliance was renewed. When Bismarck spoke
on March 23 the order of the Black Eagle had been con-
ferred on Count di Robilant for his share in the renewed
inclusion of Italy. If the Papacy had hoped by going to
Friedrichsruhe to obtain the complete repeal of the laws
against the Roman Church, the unqualified readmission
of the ecclesiastical orders, and the support of Germany
against the Quirinal in Italy it was bitterly mistaken. The
bargain had been dictated and interpreted by Bismarck,
not the Vatican. No less significant was the undoubted
fact that Great Britain had given specific pledges of pro-
tection to the Italian Kingdom--the preservation of the
status quo in the Mediterranean and the defence of Italy
from'invasion by sea. 'Our position,' Depretis said in
February 1887, 'is now secure both by land and sea. '
'Our friendly relations with England,' said the Italian
Foreign Minister, as late as 1896, 'are in our view the
natural complement of the Triple Alliance. '
Bismarck in 1887 might well feel triumphant. He had
secured Italy on such terms that he virtually secured Great
Britain also. 1 At Rome in the allied Italian Monarchy he
had a powerful check on the Vatican; he had compelled
1 See Chiala,' La Duplice e la Triplice Allianza,' Hansard (i888), vol. 322.
1172, et jeq. , and The Times for November 5, 1887. It was generally understood
that the renewal provided, 1, If France 'attacked' Germany or Italy both were
to join in defence; 2. If Russia 'attacked ' Germany or Austria both were to
unite in defence; 3. If France and Russia attacked any one of the three allies,
all three were to unite in defence. The re-organisation of the Italian army in
1887 and 1888 (particularly after the visit of the Emperor William it. to Rome
in 1888) was one of the consequences of the renewal of the Triple Alliance.
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
the Papacy to win a victory for the German government
in Germany, which enormously increased the power of
the civil and militarist government, and through the
Papacy and the German Catholic bishops he had destroyed
the independent and powerful political opposition of
Windthorst and the Clerical Centre in the Reichstag.
The Chancellor's political cartel was complete; it con-
sisted of the Conservatives, the old National Liberals,
and the Centre; and the union gave him a decisive and
obedient majority. 1
The year 1887, therefore, registered the final defeat of
Liberalism, and not merely political but also intellectual
Liberalism. Militarism and reaction won all along the line
and the commander-in-chief of Militarism and reaction
was Bismarck. The German Clerical Centre, like the old
National Liberals, shed its last rags of independence, and
became henceforward a party that stood for authority,
despotism, and Pan-Germanism, corrupted by the favour of
the government, demoralised by its dependence on the
Vatican, and allied with the Pan-German party in Austria.
The Papacy and its parties became the allies and agents of
Prussianism, as Bismarck understood the term. 'The
Anti-Christ,' denounced by Pio Nono and Antonelli had
become the champion for whom Popes and Nuncios would
work--and not only in Germany. The ring of interests
that buttressed up the Bismarckian system was now com-
pleted by the alliance between the Conservative Lutherans
of Junkertum and the Conservative Clericals of the Centre.
Success, like misfortune, makes strange political bed-
fellows. The 'white international of- the dynasties,' true
to the solidarity of legitimate autocracy, was seconded
by 'the yellow international of High Finance,' the
Kaiserjudtn and the Industrials (Schlot-Junkertum), and
the 1 black international of the Clericals. ' After 1887
the penetration and capture of the Curia by the
diplomacy of Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria, was only a
question of time--proved up to the hilt when it became
necessary to elect a successor to Leo xm, Germany, says
1 'Peace with the Catholic Church,' Bismarck said,' will strengthen our rela-
tions with foreign countries, especially Austria. '
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? 454
BISMARCK
Naumann, became 'a prosperous Spain. ' A passage in
Bismarck's speech of March 23 is very significant: 'The
sharpest and bitterest opponents of the government,' he
asserted, 'have been pupils of the German Universities,
not of the Seminaries. . . . A seminary under a peace-
loving, well-disposed bishop, with a good German mind,
is far preferable to a course of study at a German Univer-
sity, where no one is responsible for the education with all
its influences which uncontrolled mould the student. '
In other words, minds made to order and on a pattern
prescribed by the government for its own political ends
are preferable to minds formed by free and critical in-
quiry. It is the prescription and the ideal of reaction and
authority and always will be. But it was a sorry and
sinister ending to the struggle for intellectual and political
freedom with Vaticanism--an unexpected close to the
conflict that Bismarck had commenced in 1873--and it
opened a chapter in the intellectual history of the German
universities and of the German mind, dreaded alike by
Mommsen and Virchow--the two greatest figures in the
German world of intellect. That chapter was not closed
when Bismarck died in 1898. It is not closed yet. It
was therefore wholly consonant to Bismarck's policy that
in the spring of 1888 a new anti-Socialist Bill prolonged
the exceptional powers conferred on the Central Executive
until September 30, 1893. The power to deprive of
civic rights all Socialists convicted under the law was
enlarged, and the Minister of the Interior, Herr von
Puttkamer, announced openly that the German Secret
Police extended their efforts to Switzerland, and acted as
voluntary agents in the struggle of Russian absolutism with
Nihilists and refugees.
The bill passed on February 17.
On March 9 the change long foreseen took place. The
death of the Emperor William on that day opened the
last phase for Bismarck.
? 6. The Last Phase--Bismarck's Resignation,
March iSSS-March 1890
The death of the Emperor William 1. removed the
sovereign whom Bismarck had served for twenty-five years
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 455
with a personal devotion, as sincere as it was deep. The
brief speech in which the Chancellor announced to the
Reichstag that the first Prussian Emperor was dead is the
best proof of the grief that the national loss stirred within
him. And even that official effort was too great a strain.
For the first and the last time Bismarck broke down. He
resumed his seat broken with emotion, after a few rugged
sentences, in which both words and strength failed him.
The failure was a far more impressive tribute to his royal
and imperial master than any funeral oration. The simple
Soldier-King and the mighty Minister-President of Prussia
had worked together through a heroic epoch for great
and heroic ends; and profoundly as they differed in
character and gifts, sharp as had been on notable occasions
the collision of their wills, the personal bond of loyalty,
service, and affection, forged at Schloss Babenberg on
September 22, 1862, had deepened and tightened with
every year until it had become indissoluble, except by
death. William 1. never forgot that the two things in life
which summed up his political creed--the House of Hohen-
zollern and the Prussian army--were the two things which
his minister had saved from ruin and made the two most
puissant and indisputable forces in Germany and Europe.
Bismarck and Bismarck's policy had unified Germany, but
unified it in such a way that the head of the House of
Hohenzollern was the greatest sovereign on the Continent
of Europe, while the power and stability of the dynasty
rested on the unified nation in arms, of which the King-
Emperor was the War-Lord by acknowledged right. In
1888 as he lay dying William could remember his mother
Queen Louisa and Jena--he could remember 1848 and his
brother, Frederick William iv. --only forty years ago.
In the spring of 1888 'the March days' of '48 were as
unthinkable as the recurrence of a Jena or the visit of a
French conqueror to the tomb of Frederick the Great.
William could die in peace, full of years, with a nation
following him in mourning to his grave. The minister
who had achieved was indeed mighty, but the sceptre and
the prerogative that passed so rapidly to son and grandson
were mightier than the minister, who had made them
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? 456
BISMARCK
what they were. Within two years the Prussian Crown
had broken the Chancellor. Bismarck could not work
without the Prussian Crown: but the sequel showed that
the Prussian Crown would and could work without
Bismarck. And it was Bismarck who had made this
possible.
Had fate decided differently, the strength of that
Prussian Crown might have been convincingly exem-
plified in the reign of the Emperor Frederick. In De-
cember 1887, however, sentence of death had in reality
been passed on the Crown Prince, and when the new
Emperor arrived in Berlin on March 12 from San Remo
--unable to reach his capital until three days after his
father's death--he was a dying man. On June 8, Herr von
Puttkamer, the reactionary Minister of the Interior ' re-
signed. ' On June 15, the Emperor Frederick was dead.
* What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us! '
It is a commonplace, but one of those commonplaces
that enshrine notable truths, to pronounce the Emperor
Frederick's reign to be a tragedy. The tragedy does not
lie in the physical suffering, so heroically borne, nor in the
premature death of one cut off in the prime of a superb
manhood, but in the misery of frustrated purposes and
baffled hopes. All his life, since the days of a generous
and exultant youth, the Crown Prince had been inspired
by high and noble purposes. Through the dreary'era of
conflict,' through Kfiniggratz, Worth, Gravelotte, Sedan,
and Versailles, through the Kulturkampf and the establish-
ment of the Dual and Triple Alliance, the heir to the
throne had cherished the ideal of proving to Prussia,
Germany, and the world that a soldier-sovereign of the
Hohenzollern House, who believed in the Prussian army
and had played his part as became a Hohenzollern in the
unification of Germany by victory in the field, could also
be a liberal and constitutional ruler, whose duty it was to
give to Prussia and Germany a government, a policy, and
an outlook truly Liberal. And when at last Providence
had placed the sceptre in his hands, and a great work
awaited the new ruler which could only be done by
a Liberal sovereign, fate struck him down impotent and
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 457
tortured, yet haunted by the splendours of the ideal that
had made his life an apprenticeship in self-suppression
and a consecration to duty.
Death can be very bitter. Had Frederick's three
months of rule been dogged by prolonged physical pain
and the knowledge of failure to realise his dreams, they
would have been a martyrdom; but to the bitterness of
pain and defeat were added, in the mystery of human
things, the rebellion and treachery of an ungrateful son,
and the unpardonable tyranny of his Chancellor to all
whom the Emperor loved or cared for--and his own help-
lessness to protect or to punish. Insolence, intrigue, de-
famation, and defiance are never so detestable as when
they are employed against the dying and by those who
reckon on the security that the Angel of Death at
the door will bring to their authors. There are black
pages in Bismarck's record and black places in his char-
acter, but the blackest that no extenuation can obliterate
are recorded in the three months from March 13 to
June 15, 1888. And it is fitting, perhaps, that the
chapter and verse should be supplied in the amazing pages
of Busch's chronicles,1 though Busch's revelations are
only a fragment of the evidence. Richter's speech in the
Prussian Landtag (May 27), evoked by the infamous article
on 'Petticoat Government,' was a scathing exposure of
the campaign of libel opened (certainly with Bismarck's
knowledge, probably at his inspiration) by the Conser-
vative and National Liberal parties, and also of the
intimidation and bribery practised by the government
officials. It led to the Imperial rescript enjoining free-
dom at the elections, which caused Puttkamei's dismissal
(June 8). Bismarck promptly paid a visit to, and then
entertained the dismissed minister at a dinner at the
Imperial Chancery (June 11). 2 The Emperor was known
1 Butch, Bismarck, Srcret Pages, see particularly iii. pp. i63-189 (Eng. ed. ).
'Circumstances here, notes Hohenlohe laconically on May 26, at Berlin, 'dis-
pleased me intensely. It is a pity that I could not retire now as a strong protest
against all these goings on. ' Hohenlohe was an honourable gentleman.
* There is considerable evidence that Bismarck really desired Puttkamer's dis-
missal, and characteristically placed the odium on the Emperor, taking care tq ?
represent it as an 'English' and 'feminine' intrigue.
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? 458
BISMARCK
to be dying--he could not be openly disobeyed, but he
could be insulted and defied, with impunity. Such was
Bismarck's gratitude for the three critical occasions in
which the Emperor, as Crown Prince, in 1866, 1870, and
1879, had supported the Minister's policy against the
obstinacy of the sovereign. The truth was, as Hohenlohe
records (December 15, 1889); 'remarkable to me was
the deep aversion which he. (Bismarck) has for the
Emperor Frederick. He declared him an egotistical,
cold man, and said he had no heart. ' Comment on such
verdict is unnecessary. When, as so often, he was mastered
by personal hate, which coincided with a fundamental
political antagonism, there Were no limits to Bismarck's
unscrupulous brutality. One subject of bitter controversy,
involving foreign policy, had arisen in these tragic three
months--the proposed marriage between the Princess
Victoria, the Emperor's daughter, and Prince Alexander
of Battenberg. Since the secret Reinsurance Treaty,
Bismarck was determined in every way to keep on good
terms with the Tsar. The envenomed hostility of the
Tsar to Prince Alexander had been proclaimed broadcast
to the world in the preceding two years. In the summer
of 1888 Prince Alexander no longer ruled in the united
Bulgarias, and there was no chance of his ever being in
authority again at Sofia. Bismarck vetoed the marriage,
for the simple reason that it would stir such a ferocity of
resentment in the Tsar as to endanger, if not snap, the
entente of 1887. He chose to represent the proposal in
the press and in official circles as a Machiavellian effort
of England to control German policy for English ends, to
embroil Germany and Russia for English ends, and to
manipulate the destinies of Bulgaria for English purposes
against the interests of Germany and Russia. The press
under the Chancellor's control and in his pay had instruc-
tions to open a savage campaign against English interfer-
ence in German affairs and in the Near East. And the
instructions were obeyed with a scurrilous zest. If
Bismarck did not know that this was untrue, he was very
incompetent. But he was not incompetent, and the
inference is obvious and indisputable. The marriage did
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 459
not take place. But this was not a victory of an inde-
pendent Germany over an intriguing and unscrupulous
Great Britain. For, as we know now, the influence of
Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury were exerted precisely
as Bismarck would have Germany believe they were not.
The accession of the Emperor William n. on June 16,
1888--the year of the Three Emperors--opened up a
wholly new situation. The new sovereign was in his
twenty-ninth year, and teeming with energy, ideas, and
masterfulness. Since 1887 he had been carefully in-
structed, at his grandfather's wish, in the mysteries of
statecraft by Bismarck, and the effusive enthusiasm with
which he proclaimed at the outset his desire to carry out
his grandfather's (not his father's) policy with the aid of
his grandfather's great Chancellor made the resignation
that Bismarck had contemplated after the death of
William 1. superfluous. Germany was instructed to
believe that the new sovereign would be in all things as
obedient to Bismarck's advice and ripe experience as had
been William 1.
Bismarck himself believed it. A year later, in the
autumn of 1889, when the Tsar was in Berlin and Bismarck
emphasised his earnest lesire that German policy should
maintain a close co-operation with Russia, the Tsar
pointedly asked, 'Are you sure of remaining in office? '
'Certainly, your Majesty,' Bismarck replied, 'I am
absolutely sure of remaining in office all my life. '1 That
was on October 11. Five months later he had ceased to
be Chancellor, and if any date must be selected for the
commencement of the serious collision between Chan-
cellor and Emperor it would be October I3,a two days
after Bismarck's confident utterance, when a serious
difference on foreign policy revealed itself. The publi-
cation by Geffcken (one of the Emperor Frederick's circle)
of elaborate excerpts from the late emperor's diary in the
Deutsche Rundschau, bearing particularly on the war of
1 Bismarck related this to the NauFreie Presse, which printed it in its issue of
June 22, 1892. Down to the autumn of 1889, Hohenlohe repeatedly noted that
the Emperor was 'entirely under the influence of the Chancellor. '
1 In the conversation between the two, after the Tsar's departure, as recorded
by Bismarck in the Hamburger Naekrichten, July 24, 1891,
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? 460
BISMARCK
1870, the foundation of the Empire and the Liberalism
of the Crown Prince, created a great stir. Bismarck's
'Immediate Report' attacked the authenticity of the
document, but as he admitted to Busch, whatever its
authenticity, it must be treated as spurious because the
record was damaging to the official version and the in-
terest of the dynasty, and not least to Bismarck himself.
Geffcken's prosecution was ordered, while Geffcken himself
was arrested and sent to prison. 'The legend that the
late Emperor was a Liberal, in sympathy with the Pro-
gressive party, was dangerous to the whole dynasty and
must be destroyed. '
Geffcken's acquittal (January 4, 1882) by the Supreme
Court was a damaging blow to Bismarck, which roused
him to uncontrollable anger. He wished to institute
'disciplinary measures' against Geffcken in the University.
of Strasburg; or, in other words, to compel the Univer-
sity to deprive him of his chair. But, apart from this
high-handed interference with academic and civic rights,
how could a professor be dismissed for an alleged offence
of which the highest tribunal in Germany had just
acquitted him? The idea was proved to be legally im-
possible, but Bismarck's desire to crush Geffcken, as he
had crushed Arnim, simply proved his intolerance of all
opposition and all intellectual or political liberty. It
proceeded from the same principles as the unrelenting
pressure that he applied during 1888 and 1889 to the
Swiss government in ' the Wohlgemuth affair,' to coerce
the Federal authorities into collaborating with the German
secret police, planted in Swiss territory, in hunting down
German Socialists, driven oat of Germany by the Anti-
Socialist Law. The Swiss government very properly
refused to comply with so unwarranted an intervention
in the internal affairs of a Sovereign State. There
followed a menacing correspondence in which Bismarck
went so far as to threaten that Germany might decline to
recognise any further the 'neutrality' of Switzerland
defined by an international guarantee; but the Swiss, to
Bismarck's anger, declined to be browbeaten by their
powerful neighbour, 'He,' (Bismarck) Hohenlohe noted
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 461
in the Geffcken affair, 'gave me the impression of a man
not quite sound mentally' (January 25, 1889). He
repeats the remark with reference to the Swiss. 'Even
Herbert Bismarck,' he notes (June 24), 'said he could
no longer understand his father, and many people were
beginning to think that he was no longer quite sane. '
The German soldier chiefs were seriously troubled. All
their military plans for a war in which Germany might be
involved with France were drawn on the assumption of a
friendly and neutral Switzerland. Switzerland driven
into the arms of France would dislocate the strategical
ideas that the great General Staff, in its continuous study
of the European situation, was always working out in
the light of every fresh political development. Bismarck
was, indeed, as sane as was Napoleon 1. in his later years,
but with both men uncontrolled power and overweening
confidence in their genius brought out all the latent des-
potism that from the very first was embedded in their
political principles and their interpretation of life; and
with both resentment concentrated in a personal hatred
of the individual who symbolised the opposition. Bis-
marck only desired to treat Geffcken as Napoleon treated
Mme. de Stael or the Duc D'Enghien. The world must
be made safe for autocracy. 1
The plain truth was that after June 1888 the conditions
which had made the Bismarckian system workable and
possible were suddenly reversed. Bismarck and Germany
had grown accustomed to the rule of an emperor never
fitted by his gifts to be a great master either of adminis-
tration or of policy, who in 1871 was in his seventy-fourth
year, and with every year was obliged to surrender more
and more of power and control to the adviser whose
1 No less characteristic of Bismarckian methods and manners and of the
'anti-English' campaign was the revival in the controlled German press of the
charge that Sir R. Morier, then British Ambassador at Petersburg, had in 1870,
when he was British minister at Darmstadt, betrayed to the French at Metx
important military information damaging to the German operations. Morier
publicly refuted this infamous and absurd libel, proving by a letter of Marshal
Bazaine that it was a lie; but Count Herbert Bismarck, though requested to do
so, declined officially to disavow it, or, when challenged, to produce any evidence
in its support; with the result that, to this day it is still believed in educated
quarters in Germany.
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? \6i
BISMARCK
genius, amazing capacity for work, and complete accord
with his sovereign in the general principles of government
inspired a deep confidence. Bismarck had thus syndicated
in himself both the formidable powers of the Imperial
Chancellorship and the still more formidable powers of the
Emperor and Prussian King. The new Emperor was
young, versatile, and fired by a devouring activity. Had
he been a constitutional sovereign he would not have
been prepared to step on to the shelf during the best years
of his life. But he was not a constitutional sovereign.
William n. had been born and bred in the militarist
atmosphere of the Hohenzollern Court, and he had been
trained in the theory, sedulously enforced since 1847 by
no one more than by Bismarck himself, that the Prussian
monarch personally governed, and that the Prussian
Crown was not the idle ornament of a constitutional
building, but the living and operative force in the mechan-
ism of the State. . 'If a lion knew its own strength,'
Wolsey remarked of the young Henry vin. , 'hard it were
to rule him. ' There were, in fact, practically no limits
- to what the Emperor, with the help of the Prussian Crown,
could do, if he chose to exercise to its full all the latent
power in the prerogative, prestige, and influence of the
Imperial and Prussian Monarchy. William n. took some
months to discover what an unexplored and inexhaustible
heritage had fallen to him--a heritage enriched by
Bismarck's efforts for a quarter of a century. Therein lay
the irony of the situation. Had Bismarck been the Parlia-
ment-made minister of a constitutional sovereign, whose
ministerial position rested on a national mandate expressed
through a representative assembly to which he was re-
sponsible, it would have been William n. not Bismarck who
must have given way. Bismarck had indeed the confidence
of the nation. A plebiscite in t 890 would have retained
him in office till death came. But the nation could not
save him in 1890, nor could it bring him back. Once he
had lost the support of the Crown he was powerless. He
could not appeal to the Reichstag nor to the Federal
Council, still less to the nation by a general election. He
must either resign or be dismissed. He could not even
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